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The Current Transcript for May 11, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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DR. SUSANNA MAK: 50 years ago, there was initially a perception that heart disease was a man's disease, right? There wasn't the awareness that women would actually suffer cardiovascular disease as much as men.

MG: That perception couldn't be further from the truth. Heart disease remains the global leading cause of death for both men and women and yet, women have been underrepresented in cardiovascular disease research. In 30 minutes, the real life consequences that research gap has outside the lab and the scientists and the brave volunteers who are trying to change that. Also this morning, 50 years in one job is a long time, 50 years singing on stage is perhaps even more impressive. In an hour, meet the B.C. opera singer who has just retired after a half century of hitting the high notes. And later, eat your vegetables!

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CHILD: I love corn.

MALE SPEAKER: Do you think everyone should be eating corn?

CHILD: No, not everyone has to like it to be the best.

MALE SPEAKER: Yeah.

CHILD: Everyone just has to try it, have a bite.

MG: Easier said than done for some parents. Coming up, how scientists are using gene editing tools to make veggies like brussels sprouts and kale taste better and perhaps seem more attractive to picky eaters. But first, we head to Guatemala to meet with migrants on the long road to the U.S. border. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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MIGRATION

Guests: Liz Hoath, Timothy Perea, Michelle Hackman

MG: As you've been hearing in the news, as of 11:59 p.m. tonight, Title 42 expires. This is a policy that allows the U.S. Border Patrol to expel migrants at the US-Mexico border immediately after they cross without asylum hearings. Now, U.S. President Joe Biden is bringing in new rules and the U.S. government is creating processing centres in Central and South American countries like Guatemala and Colombia. The Current’s senior producer, Liz Hoath, has been reporting in Guatemala this week talking to people on the border with Honduras. Liz, good morning.

LIZ HOATH: Hi, good morning, Matt.

MG: So tell me where you were.

LIZ HOATH: So we've been staying for a couple of days in a city called Puerto Barrios. And so it's on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala. And it's an interesting spot because it's just about a 45-minute drive south kind of east to Cinchado, which is a border crossing between Guatemala and Honduras. So we spent some time there.

MG: What is it like at that border crossing?

LIZ HOATH: Well, I was there with people from the UNHCR and they have an assistant centre there. And the word that they use to describe it is hostile. And in that way, they mean the conditions at the border crossing. It's really hot. It was almost 40 degrees when we were there, very humid. There's not much shade and it's a major crossing for transport trucks. So these trucks are lined up. It's noisy. They're going through all day. You're surrounded by exhaust and pollution. And it's really interesting just driving up to it because you see the migrants already coming through this border crossing. We saw a family with a mom and a dad and a young boy that was walking and the dad was holding a piece of cardboard over top of the family to try and shade them from the sun. And another family we met, it was actually three women, one man and a little girl. And the little girl was clutching this giant bottle of water that they just bought at the roadside stand. They're just sitting under these trees and just trying to regroup a little bit. They’ve just come on a long journey and they're not sure their next step. So they just sit and try and find some shade.

MG: Do you have a sense as to where these people are coming from?

LIZ HOATH: It's hard to say because not all of them check in, But what they know is that most of them are coming from a few different places. So Honduras is a big one. They're coming across the border from Honduras, which is a country that's really been struggling with violence, gender based violence, lots of issues that people are escaping. So it's about a third from there, about a third also from Venezuela, which we know very well the political situation there and why people are leaving. Then the other countries, it's Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, and there's even some that have travelled from as far as Afghanistan and China. And this is a journey, right, like cross the Darian Gap and they go through jungles and mountains, there’s violence, they're trying to get rides where they can, they're walking for a really long way. So here's what one woman told us, and we met her at the border.

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[Maria speaking through a translator]: When we were on the road, many people told us to never be alone and to wait for the men because if you're a woman alone, that's when people can take advantage and do bad things and cause harm. So you have to wait for the group, walking and waiting, stopping and walking around.

MG: So this is a really busy spot. Do you have a sense as to how many people are coming through this area?

LIZ HOATH: It's actually really hard to get a handle on because so many people are coming through irregular routes. Not all are going through this actual border crossing where we were. Some are just going a few hundred metres or a little bit further to the side of it through the jungle paths to come through and get to the other side. So they're not checking in. They're just going, you know, some with coyotes, some on their own. We saw a few groups coming out of this jungle path, and one of them in particular just absolutely staring straight ahead. They were obviously with a coyote, did not make eye contact with us, would not speak to us, just straight through a parking lot into a van that was waiting for them at the gas station right there. People like that are not obviously getting counted, so there's a few ways that they can measure. So what we do know is that there's at least thousands of people a week that are travelling through Guatemala. And if you look at the numbers from further south, from the Darien Gap and in Panama, they do actually measure the numbers there. And they say that in March alone, 84,000 people crossed the Darien Gap and that's five times as many as last March. And of course, that movement will be getting bigger as it comes north because picking up people from these other countries in Central America.

MG: And just to be clear, I mean, for people who don't know, the coyotes are their guides and smugglers. Pay them and they help you kind of make that passage through from one place to another.

LIZ HOATH: Exactly. So they know that path through the jungle and they have arranged for that van to be waiting for you at the other end. So then you're just whipped off to your next stop.

MG: And so the people who are making this trip, who are they?

LIZ HOATH: Again, it's hard to just say it's one type of people. It's all different kinds. Some people looking for a better life, some people escaping violence. The woman that we heard earlier, she was travelling with her family. So she's the grandmother in the group. So she's with her daughter and her grandson. And they had fled Venezuela more than a month ago and they were inside this UNHCR assistance centre, which they run with some local partners there, I should mention. It's such an interesting situation because the grandma was dressed kind of like you might expect. She was wearing jeans, sort of an old T-shirt that was dirty, a ball cap on her head. But her daughter who's 24 was wearing this bright pink cotton shirt, and it had these ties that tied up over top of her shoulder, black leggings. She had a messy bun on the top of her head. She was checking her social media just as soon as she got in there. And it was really her the daughter that wanted to leave. She wanted a better education for her son who was also there. But she also has this dream of being a model in the United States. So Maria the grandmother, as we're calling her, said that that was really her motivation.

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[Maria speaking through a translator]: I'm a housewife. I've been without work for five or six months. I look after my children and grandchildren. I'm very homey. I'm a hard worker with a desire to move forward. What more can I say? I love my family. I love my daughters. They're my life. And anything they ask me, I'll do it. Because she said, I want to leave, mom. I said, okay, I'm going to go. I'm going to join my daughter to fulfil her dream. If I can help her get there by accompanying her, what more can a mother do but to accompany her child so she can accomplish what she wants.

MG: And so many of these people are making this passage and on the way to the U.S. border. As I said in the introduction, as of midnight tonight, Title 42 expires. That will change a lot of things. How do people think that will affect Guatemala?

LIZ HOATH: Well, there's some real impacts actually. In this centre in particular, the UNHCR centre is one of the places that has been identified as a possible location where people can come and claim asylum. So one of the new measures that President Biden announced was that there could be up to 100 of these processing centres so that people don't have to make that journey to the U.S. border. They get processed in countries in Central and South America. So Guatemala is one of these countries and this centre they think will be one of the places, but the negotiations are still going on. There's no information about what that's actually going to look like. Where do the people go while they're waiting for their claims to be processed? Who does the processing? All of those kinds of details have not been worked out yet. And then, of course, the other thing is how is this going to affect the numbers? When we were at the border, I talked to a lot of people along the side of the road, the money changers, people running restaurants, security guards, and they all said they thought the numbers were down particularly in the last month or two. And they were thinking, they don't know for sure, it could be that people are just waiting, waiting to see what this impact is going to be, how it's going to change their trip, whether they're going to have a different route to go or whether they should still just head for the U.S. border like they have been in so many numbers.

MG: And so you're going to bring us more stories from this region in the days and weeks ahead here on The Current. What do you have cooking?

LIZ HOATH: Well, it's interesting because you talk about the border and all of the people heading through these borders, but there's some real work inside these countries so that people don't have to do that. Same in Honduras. I'm at the airport right now. We're heading for Honduras. And there's places there where they are really working on some of the real issues of gang violence, gender based violence, all of these things that are driving people out of the country to try and make it a place where they can actually stay and build a future.

MG: Liz, thank you for this and safe travels.

LIZ HOATH: Thanks, Matt.

MG: The Current's senior producer Liz Hoath. She is in Guatemala City. Further north, communities on the US-Mexico border are preparing for what could happen now that Title 42 is about to end. The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has deployed what he calls a tactical border force.

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GREG ABBOTT: Right now as we're speaking, the Texas National Guard is loading Blackhawk helicopters and C-130. They will be deployed to hotspots along the border to intercept, to repel and to turn back migrants who are trying to enter Texas illegally.

MG: Timothy Perea is the pastor at the New Life Faith Centre in El Paso, Texas, right on the border with Mexico. His church has been providing support and food for migrants camped out on the streets of that city. Pastor, good morning.

TIMOTHY PEREA: Good morning. How are you doing today, Matt?

MG: I'm well, thanks. Can you just describe the scene in El Paso? I mentioned people camping out on the streets. What does it look like there?

TIMOTHY PEREA: Well, not only do you see people out on the streets without any guidance or forward to applying for political asylum, but you see a huge amount of this community that need a bottle of water, you know, some shelter, food during the day so they can, you know, continue on with their path of seeking asylum.

MG: What sort of state are people in when they get across into that community? We heard our producer talking about the long journey that many migrants are taking. And so what kind of shape are they in?

TIMOTHY PEREA: That’s correct. Well, you know, some are in fear because they've crossed through different countries, about seven to nine countries to arrive to the U.S. of A. And you see fear among them. And then, of course, this sense of relief as well because they’ve reached their goal. They're here within the states. And some people are just happy living outside on the streets.

MG: And so what sort of support are you able to provide them?

TIMOTHY PEREA: Well, a couple of things that we do as far as a church. We provide them not only food and shelter or clothing, we also give a sense of relief, provide some education because keep in mind, they're in a new country. So there's laws that they have to abide by. So basically, when they do a crosswalk, we have to tell them, you know what, you have to wait for traffic and you have to gain this agreement between you and the vehicle. Also, they have to maintain themselves, you know, cordially and obey the officials if they’re instructed to do so. So sort of cleaning them up.

MG: What is your sense as to where those who are in the community are headed? What is their ultimate destination?

TIMOTHY PEREA: Well, there’s a couple of destinations that they have. They don't want to stay here in El Paso, Texas. They want to go to their loved ones. Some want to go to Denver, Colorado, Los Angeles, New York and Dallas within Texas. So they're just using this particular city of El Paso as a springboard to go to their destination.

MG: What do you think is going to happen at midnight tonight when Title 42 expires?

TIMOTHY PEREA: Well, I mean, we're expecting, of course, an influx of immigrants to cross the border. So we don't know the numbers yet. We're kind of assessing if we need to prepare for them. So when they're coming to ground Zero, which is known as Sacred Heart here in El Paso, they have at least a lunch prepared for them. Hot meal and education as far as what's next up.

MG: But nobody really seems to know how many people could cross the border, right?

TIMOTHY PEREA: That is correct. There is no number or, you know, quantity that is being communicated within the city leaders to us as NGOs, but we are expecting an influx, a tsunami of migrants to come through the border here in El Paso.

MG: A tsunami of migrants is your phrasing of that.

TIMOTHY PEREA: That's correct, yes. It's something that we've seen about a week and a half ago. We weren't expecting, of course, any influx until after this particular date, but we've seen numbers between 1500 to 2000 at ground zero, and that's not even counting the shelters around the city.

MG: And so just finally, you're there and you're helping people who have crossed. What are you most concerned about? If those numbers are as large as you say and already, you're stretched to try to offer that support, what are you most concerned about?

TIMOTHY PEREA: The main concern that we have as an NGO is that we’re having a lot of just increment weather. You know, we’re in the 80s, 90s. So that creates a lot of thirst, dehydration, and that can be a potential for infirmities. Like for example, something like COVID, of course, malaria within the group. So what we try to do is provide them nourishment. so basically, feed the little ones, the young ones all the way to the older person, so they can have a sense of relief, especially when they're, you know, when they're travelling within here, within the state of Texas.

MG: I wish you the best of luck and I'm glad to talk to you. Pastor, thank you.

TIMOTHY PEREA: Thank you very much.

MG: Pastor Timothy Perea heads the New Life Faith Centre. He was in El Paso, Texas. Michelle Hackman is a reporter with the Wall Street Journal. She covers U.S. immigration policy. She's in Washington, D.C. Michelle, good morning to you.

MICHELLE HACKMAN: Thanks for having me.

MG: Can you just briefly explain what Title 42 did?

MICHELLE HACKMAN: Yeah. So Title 42 was a measure that was justified by the pandemic where officials said, you know, if you cross our border, because there's a risk that you might spread COVID, even if you ask for asylum, we're going to actually override our asylum laws. Normally, we'd have to hear you out and put you in a proceeding, but we're just going to say no and turn you back to Mexico for the safety of our public health.

MG: And so this is expiring. It's being revoked. But what is being put into place by the president?

MICHELLE HACKMAN: Yeah. So you're right. I think a lot of coverage is talking about the end of Title 42 as like, you know, there's going to be nothing in its place. But the Biden administration here has been working on a plan for months that in the end, you know, is supposed to look a lot like Title 42. They're going to really massively restrict access to asylum. They're going to make it extremely difficult for people who cross illegally to qualify for asylum. And they're going to try to give them really quick initial screenings to see whether they might be eligible and if not, try to deport them either back to their home countries or Mexico.

MG: In the meantime, what do you think is going to happen when Title 42 expires at 11:59 p.m.? We just heard from the pastor in El Paso. He says he expects a tsunami of people crossing that border.

MICHELLE HACKMAN: Yeah, you know, it's really hard for us to predict sort of daily totals here and there. We've been seeing a really large surge connected with the imminent end of Title 42. It's possible that the numbers could go even higher or that they could stay elevated.

MG: And what sort of numbers are we talking about? I mean, people have read the mean numbers up, You know, thousands of people perhaps crossing the border per day.

MICHELLE HACKMAN: Let me give you a perspective. So, you know, back in let's say the Obama administration, you had 1000, 2000 people crossing a day. Under Trump, it went to several thousand a day. You know, obviously, there are ups and downs, but this past winter when we had a lull, it went back to about 4000 a day. Now we've been seeing 8000 a day. On Tuesday, we know we saw more than 10,000. It must have gone even higher yesterday, we just don't have numbers. So that's the kind of, you know, those are the numbers we're talking about.

MG: So is what Joe Biden is putting into place, is that going to change the number of people crossing the border, do you think?

MICHELLE HACKMAN: Well, it's really hard to say. You know, on paper, it should. You know, there are a lot of factors, though. If people keep coming and they, you know, they aren't able to implement their plan fully against everyone who's coming and they're forced to release people into the United States, that could change the calculus for people in Mexico who say, you know what, my odds aren't so bad. Let me just give it a try. So I think if I, you know, I shouldn't predict, but for the next few weeks, we definitely will keep seeing numbers like this. And the question is what happens sort of after that?

MG: We mentioned that there are processing centres that are being set up in a number of countries, including Guatemala. There are also steps through technology to try to make it easier for people who are seeking asylum to apply through legal pathways. You talked to people who have tried to use this app that the government has created. What did you hear from them?

MICHELLE HACKMAN: Yeah. So the government has created this app for people in Mexico where they say that you can apply legally. Just download our app, make an appointment, come to a legal port of entry and present yourself. You know, the problem is like any app, it's really glitchy. There aren't nearly enough appointments for people trying to use them every day. They're up to about a thousand appointments a day now. And, you know, you have tens of thousands of people logging on every day. And so the app is crashing. The app, you know, grays out at the exact moment that people were trying to sign up for appointments. It has trouble recognizing people's faces. They have to take a picture every day. So, you know, it's an imperfect system.

MG: Just in the last minute or so that we have, how charged is the political atmosphere around this entire issue in your country right now?

MICHELLE HACKMAN: I would say it is rather charged. Immigration here is always charged because it is so polarizing between the parties. Interestingly, you know, where I think Democrats and Republicans are pretty cleanly split on immigration, you see some Democrats here, particularly the ones who are up for re-election next year sort of actually defending what would be seen as the Republican position, saying we can't let Title 42 end. We're clearly not ready.

MG: But that will of course be influenced by the numbers of people who come across the border. Again, that will just add fuel to the fire if it's already burning.

MICHELLE HACKMAN: You know, yeah. Well, I mean, I think our Congress here is so deadlocked that people can say that, but there's nothing really they can do because, you know, an extension of Title 42 would never pass.

MG: We'll be watching. Michelle, thank you very much.

MICHELLE HACKMAN: Thank you.

MG: Michelle Hackman is a reporter with The Wall Street Journal. She covers U.S. immigration policy and she was in Washington, D.C. You're CBC News where you hear more about this is up next. And then, cardiovascular disease, it impacts men and women alike as a leading cause of death worldwide. But for decades, studies and research have primarily focussed on men. We'll talk about what's being done to change this and the volunteers who are putting themselves forward to try to close that research gap. That's coming up in six minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current. Stay with us.

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WOMEN CARDIO

Guests: Dr. Susanna Mak, Dr. Véronique Roger

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, from pitless cherries to seedless blackberries to even tastier kale, scientists are gene editing fruits and vegetables to give them a broader appeal. Some people say we're toying with nature's goodness, though. CRISPR for kale in just under 30 minutes. But first, closing the gender gap in cardiovascular research.

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MG: Heart disease remains the world's leading cause of death for both men and women. But historically, women have been underrepresented in cardiovascular disease research and experts say this knowledge gap puts women at risk. At Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, a new study is underway aiming to close that gap. Researchers are calling on post-menopausal women to volunteer their time and their hearts to science. Ellen Valter is one of the volunteers.

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ELLEN VALTER: I'm 58 and I have found that it's difficult to find information about health effects for women my age and older in various afflictions that advancing years seem to bring with them. And they're not always the obvious ones. But when I do whatever research I'm able to, I find that certain things do affect women kind of 50 or 55 plus more than the general population. And so I thought it would be an opportunity when I saw this study to give back to science a little bit. You know, there was another reason as well, and that is that my father passed away when he was 58 and he had a cardiac event. And I thought, what better way. To find out also there's the additional benefit that if something is found, then I would be informed of it. If there was an issue with my heart, that I was in the care of some of the finest physicians in the hospital in the country.

MG: Dr. Susanna Mak is the principal investigator of that study. She's a cardiologist and clinician scientist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. She's also an associate professor in the cardiology division in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Mak, good morning.

DR. SUSANNA MAK: Good morning. I'm really happy to be here.

MG: I'm really glad to talk to you about this. Can you just explain what participants like Ellen who were involved in the study, what they actually had to do?

DR. SUSANNA MAK: So the type of research that I do is something called integrative physiology, and it's a way of understanding how the mechanics of the heart and the circulation work. So at the end of the day, the heart's a relatively simple pump, and that pump needs to support us no matter what we're doing, whether we're exercising, whether we're standing up, whether we're sleeping. And my research tries to understand with some precision the nuts and bolts of how that happens for all of us. And what I hope to do is explain what happens as we get older. For example, what happens when we try to challenge ourselves, why it becomes more difficult to exercise. And one of my interests was to try and understand whether those challenges are different for males and females. When we talk about biological effects or sex, we talk about males and females rather than men and women.

MG: And so what would you do? As the study would unfold on someone like Ellen, what is it that takes place?

DR. SUSANNA MAK: So in the particular set of studies that Ellen was participating in, we used techniques that we would commonly use for patient care, actually. We place monitors really through the blood vessel system. It's one way of studying heart and lung function. We can put these, we call them catheters, they're put in a catheterization laboratory and these monitors are able to measure the pressures in the heart and lungs quite accurately. They're able to measure the blood flow. Although we can get some of these measurements through what we would call non-invasive or more external measurements, there is nothing more precise than using this kind of methodology.

MG: And so this is a fairly invasive test, right? You are involved in right heart catheterization. What exactly does that mean?

DR. SUSANNA MAK: So right heart catheterization is a procedure where we can place some catheters, usually through the skin, using a local anesthetic to the heart to make these pressure measurements. It is invasive, but to put it into context, we make these measurements in fairly critically ill patients on an ongoing basis. So at any one time, a patient who might be waiting for a heart transplant will have some of these types of monitors, what we’d call in dwellings. So they’ll be living with these monitors for a few days at a time. And these are people with very fragile heart and lungs, and they can actually tolerate these monitors with relatively minimal risk. You obviously have to know what you're doing and have a fair amount of experience with it. But for healthy people who have pretty robust heart and lungs, the monitors themselves actually are very low risk. And obviously, I've worked for a long time doing these kinds of studies, and I work closely with our research ethics board because we need to make this a positive experience, right? We need to make this something that people are willing to do. And I find that most of our volunteers are very similar to Ellen, you know, that they're really dedicated to trying to solve problems and that they often have a personal connection, right? So they often have an experience with heart disease or a relative with heart disease, or they might be approaching the age at which their parent might have had a heart condition and they simply want to know. And we actually want to give them that experience. We want them to understand how a procedure like this is done at the same time. So we want to provide them some education and give them back, right, because they're amazing volunteers.

MG: And just, I mean, the last point on this procedure in terms of how it unfolds, the volunteer, the willing participant is conscious, They're awake and they're doing things right as you are measuring the pressure on their heart.

DR. SUSANNA MAK: They're awake, they're talking, they're engaging. And actually, I have a team that's very, very well trained at making sure that not only our participants are comfortable, but also, you know, we're in a facility that also does clinical procedures. So what I like to say is the same care we would take of your grandmother, we use that same level of care for our healthy participants in the types of studies that Ellen was participating in. We are exercising them, we are putting them through normal activities, and then we use that information to understand why these challenges, what we would take for granted as normal activities become difficult as we develop cardiovascular disease. The reason to study men and women separately is because men and women may experience slightly different challenges as we age.

MG: You're looking in the study for postmenopausal women specifically. Why that cohort?

DR. SUSANNA MAK: Yeah, that’s a great question. So across our lifespan, men and women age slightly differently. Although we're the same species, we're all human beings, from the time we're young, we actually diverge slightly. And you can layer on what I would call reproductive ageing, and I'll explain that in a second, over the idea of chronological ageing. So we're all ageing, right? And nothing gets younger for sure, but women and men age slightly differently. And one of the reasons for that is because of the reproductive ageing that we also go through. So for example, from the time a woman first becomes reproductive, so has her first period, we're in our reproductive portion of our life. And some of the hormones actually during that time actually protect women somewhat from things like vascular disease, which is why as we grow a bit older, men experience things like coronary artery disease a little bit earlier than women do because they don't have that protection. But certainly, reproductive ageing also means that at some point, we become menopausal, perimenopausal. We go through a transition. And when they lose some of that protection, they actually experience the effects of chronological ageing slightly different from men. So post-menopausal women and men experience cardiovascular disease slightly differently. So things like stroke and heart failure may be more common in women as they age versus men. So although men and women experience cardiovascular disease in relatively equal numbers, there are some differences in the manifestations of that disease. And it's important to be precise, right? It's important to make sure we understand how cardiovascular disease behaves in both males and females.

MG: Why don't we know as much perhaps as we should when it comes to how, to your point, cardiovascular disease affects women? I was reading a stat saying that, you know, women make up about 41% of clinical trials, but about 49% of people with cardiovascular disease, at least in the United States, are women. So why does that gap exist?

DR. SUSANNA MAK: Yeah, there are so many explanations for that particular issue. But you're absolutely right. So even in the basic science laboratory, in the past, most of the biologic material cells, even animal models, female cells animal models were actually underrepresented. And in human studies or in people studies, you're absolutely right. Women have tended to be underrepresented. Not just tended. I mean, the statistics demonstrate that women participate in these studies or enrolled in these studies in proportions that do not represent the split in the population. And there are so many reasons for that. I think up until recently, you know, 50 years ago, there was initially a perception that heart disease was a man's disease. There wasn't the awareness that women would actually suffer cardiovascular disease as much as men. And because the manifestations are different and we age differently and perhaps women experience some of those diseases at a later date, We only found out after doing these studies properly that women were just as affected as men were. So there is that. And I know that perhaps too big a topic to get into, there are several biases that exist, biases on the part of male physicians, biases on the part of women. So there are many things that factor into that disproportionate representation in research.

MG: Your research is trying to change that. How far along is that change, do you think, broadly?

DR. SUSANNA MAK: Well, broadly, I think we are actually changing that. So some of the statistics you reported are actually much better than they were 30 years ago. And I have to say, as a scientific community, although change like everything is slow, I would say the major funding agencies in Canada actually mandate that all investigators, when we're applying for grants, actually explain how we're going to ensure that groups are not underrepresented in our research. And one of those major groups is women and both sex. So that we make sure we understand female biology as well as we understand how we’ll incorporate the issue of gender and being a woman versus a man versus a non-binary individuals, how gender also affects your health. So we need to actually justify how we're going to incorporate sex and gender into our research plans. And I think although change is slow, I think that's beginning to penetrate, right? And that's beginning to work. And that's beginning to, for example, you know, it's reflected in groups like my own where we're interested in the differences in biological sex, but also the several groups that are interested in the influence of gender and other social determinants of health. So I think that's changing. What's important is to recognize what's been missed in the past, right? So for some of the work that I do, what you have to do is know the past well, right? So we need to know the ways in which men and women are similar. We need to know whether this has been properly studied before because if it has been, we don't need to go back and repeat those studies. But where we see the gaps, right, where we see that women were underrepresented, then it is important to go back and repeat some of those experiments and ensure that women are appropriately represented and appropriately understood. And certainly, as Ellen says, you know, I think that from the time of menopause to ageing, and that time is getting longer and longer. So a woman today will spend 40% of their lives in their post-menopausal period where 50 years ago, they only spent, you know, maybe 20% or 30% of their life in the post-menopausal state. So I think that we are moving forward, but we have a lot to do. Absolutely.

MG: It's really interesting to hear about the work that you're doing and why it matters so urgently. Dr. Mak, thank you very much.

DR. SUSANNA MAK: I appreciate it, Matt. So happy to be here.

MG: Dr. Susanna mak is a clinician scientist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and an associate professor in the University of Toronto's cardiology division in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Véronique Roger is a cardiologist and senior investigator with the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. And she's co-author of A Call to Action put out by the American Heart Association last year calling on global heart disease experts to close this gender gap. Dr. Roger, good morning to you.

DR. VÉRONIQUE ROGER: Good morning, Matt. It's a privilege to be here.

MG: It's great to have you here. This is important. And you just heard from Dr. Mak about her study at Mount Sinai Hospital. How important, from your perspective, is this kind of research?

DR. VÉRONIQUE ROGER: Oh, I think it's absolutely fundamental. I think her research actually is a critical element to address the gaps in knowledge that we are emphasizing in that collective call to action, if you will, that constitutes this American Heart Association presidential advisory. Dr. Mak really hit on all the deficits in knowledge and really deserves an enormous amount of credit and to be congratulated for addressing these knowledge gaps with the needed scientific rigour. And similarly, as she mentioned, it's critical to address these gaps, that not only the investigators, the scientists, the physician scientists, you know, understand what those gaps are and set to address them, but of course, it requires that women participants engage in these studies. And to that end, I mean, Ellen, the participant to that study, was really inspiring.

MG: As you understand it, historically, what were the reasons behind disparities in clinical studies of heart disease?

DR. VÉRONIQUE ROGER: I think it's important to understand that over time, they are getting corrected, which is good. But it's a bit of a long road because as was alluded to in the prior commentary, it's been a series of multifactorial events. If you envision the journey, if you will, from the conceptualization of a research idea all the way to women enrolling in a study, there are multiple nodes, if you will, that lead to potential biases or insufficient enrolment of women in these studies. And it could be that, you know, as was mentioned, in some of the biological studies, the cell materials, the animals were more likely to be male. The reasons for that are not quite clear, but certainly was the fact that's been corrected. The fact that women at certain phases of their lives themselves might be more reluctant than they should be to engage in research. And then also that the investigators, the scientists would not recognize the critical importance of parity in this engagement in research and therefore would not deploy the methods to be able to reach out to women as they reach out to men for enrolment in study. So it's really multifactorial. They are being addressed not as fast as many of us would like, but they are being addressed.

MG: There is a real cost to this and it's beyond research. I mean, it happens when it comes to women's health. There's a phrase that is used that women are more likely to present with atypical symptoms when it comes to heart disease. How often is that phrase used?

DR. VÉRONIQUE ROGER: Well, it depends who you talk to. But certainly, if you talk to someone who's trained a number of years ago in cardiology, it was really the, you know, typical sentence that we would hear when the presentation of a heart attack in particular or symptoms that are sort of heralding heart attack were described and that women present with atypical symptoms. And this was the common sort of lingo. And, you know, it's obviously problematic because heart disease is the number one cause of death in women. Second, women and men have the same number of risk factors for these adverse cardiac events, and they are experiencing a large number of these cardiac events. So there is really no justification to sort of adopt, if you will, a male normative definition of the presentation of a heart attack. I mean, if there's the same or roughly the same number of women and men presenting with the disease, why are men described as the norm and women referred to as atypical or not fitting the expected mole? Because this labelling, if you will, first of all, it's not justified. And second, it's certainly misleading.

MG: You’re a cardiologist and so I'll use your word. What is the cost of that lingo?

DR. VÉRONIQUE ROGER: Just under treatment, under recognition, you know, under management on the clinical side as well. I mean, that's been, you know, a problem that was raised initially in the late 1980s or early 1990s whereby there was a preventing thought that if women wanted to be treated for heart disease, they had to present as men. There was a really iconic piece in a medical journal whereby it was the analogy with what it took for women to be taken seriously when they wanted to study religious texts where they had to disguise themselves as men. And this sort of metaphor was applied to women with heart disease, saying, well, if women want to be taken seriously with heart disease, they have to present as men. And, you know, so this is not a new concept, but it's really important to dispel it.

MG: And so you co-wrote this presidential advisory, a call to Action when it comes to cardiovascular disease in women. What was the urgency there? I mean, when it is framed as a call to action, that suggests that there's fire at your feet.

DR. VÉRONIQUE ROGER: True. Absolutely. First of all, you know, it’s something that was a group effort, a team effort, and the co-authors on this paper share the sense of urgency and the passion for this field and the desire to really raise awareness that things need to be done. And the reason for the sense of urgency and the call to action is really grounded in part in the temporal trends or how things have evolved over time. So, for example, if you look at some risk factors for heart disease, some of the conditions like hypertension, diabetes, cholesterol, weight, they are not going in the right direction for the most part. And certainly, their burden is the same in men and women. So that is one aspect that's important. We're not gaining ground at all when it comes to the management of the key risk factors for heart disease. Second, when we looked at the trends in the awareness among women of the importance of heart disease for their health and the role that heart disease plays in the determination of illness, if you will, in women, we are losing ground in the percentage of women who are aware that heart disease is the number one cause of death among women and that they need to be attended to immediately. And it's important to raise this awareness among women because when one presents with some forms of cardiovascular disease, several of them actually present acutely. And the very effective treatments that we have are very time sensitive. This is particularly the case for heart attacks and stroke. And so if a woman or a man, for that matter, is sitting at home and experiencing symptoms that could either make them think that they have something wrong with their heart or a stroke or their brain, it's very important that they seek medical care in a very timely fashion urgently so that these time sensitive treatments be used.

MG: And that that care is given to them and to your point, that they're recognized and not dismissed because of who they are.

DR. VÉRONIQUE ROGER: Exactly.

MG: People have said that in some ways, this is an example of unconscious bias within the medical community. How far along are we broadly in addressing that?

DR. VÉRONIQUE ROGER: I think the cognitive awareness that this phenomenon and akin, as you said, to implicit bias is there, is very much prevalent among the community of care providers. The issue as always is to go from the cognitive realization the phenomenon this is operating to the internalization and changing that. And the other piece that needs to be actually mentioned in that landscape that we're sort of picturing here is the issue of health disparities and social determinants of health, which are both tenets, if you will, of these differences and these factors that lead to Undertreatment and they too need to be factored in and appraised. And I think the other issue that we mention is also the need to extend this conversation beyond the confines of health systems in particular to communities which can play a major role in helping members of said communities to raise their awareness about heart disease and help them be part of the solution.

MG: Do you need to change the makeup not just of scientists, but also cardiologists in terms of having a more diverse cohort of people who are doing that work to help further that along within the medical community, but to your point, also within the broader community?

DR. VÉRONIQUE ROGER: Yeah, I think most definitely, it's been recognized that diversity in terms of among practitioners and among care providers not only in cardiology, but certainly in cardiology as well is really critically important to having more women cardiologists and having more diverse population cardiologists, including race and ethnicity. That's absolutely fundamental. I mean, there's scientific evidence that the relationship with patients will build in a more trusting way in us and therefore a more effective way when men and women or members of certain race and ethnic groups can identify with their provider. I think that's critically important.

MG: But your sense is we're on the way to that but not there yet.

DR. VÉRONIQUE ROGER: No, I think we're definitely on the way to that. But when you look at the professional pipelines, if you will, there's a need for accelerating the pace. I think we're all aware of that and there's initiatives throughout the profession to do so.

MG: This is important work. Dr. Roger, glad to talk to you about it. Thank you very much.

DR. VÉRONIQUE ROGER: Thank you very much for having me.

MG: Dr. Véronique Roger is a cardiologist and senior investigator with the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. We reached her in Bethesda, Maryland. Coming up after your regional update, everyone knows someone who hates vegetables. Maybe you are that person. What if the kale or broccoli that you don't particularly enjoy tasted a little sweeter? New technology could help make that happen. Should it? We will discuss coming up in a few moments. Plus, after almost 50 years on stage, a Vancouver opera singer takes her final bow. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. We're back in 90 seconds. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

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BETTER TASTING VEGGIES

Guests: Michael Wolf, Antony John

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

MALE SPEAKER: No, brussels sprouts, every kid's worst nightmare. I think my parents made me try it once, but I refuse to eat them anymore.

MG: A lot of parents probably going, I have seen that movie before. Generations of kids have waged war against brussels sprouts, kale, peas, you name it. What, though, if there was a way to make those vegetables taste better, to take some of the yuck out of the taste and keep the nutrients? Or what if you could grow a cherry without the pit blackberries without the seeds? Food scientists are using gene editing technology known as CRISPR to help make this happen. We'll get into the how of this in just a moment. But first, we went out onto the streets of Toronto to ask people if they would go for a scientific salad.

SOUNDCLIP

FIRST FEMALE SPEAKER: I don't know. I'm just only used to eating cherries with pits that I couldn't fathom it being different. Would it be less expensive because it would have less weight to it? Cherries are expensive.

SECOND FEMALE SPEAKER: I feel like the kale thing, absolutely. It feels like a slight enough modification. But if someone were to take seeds out of cherries, I don't know. I guess I like the process of, yeah. Yeah. It feels like, I don't know, seasonal and nostalgic, and I'd have a hard time with that.

THIRD FEMALE SPEAKER: I guess it depends on how much they're fooling around with it. Yeah. Once your food is not food anymore, I think you can put up with a little bit of bitter in a pit.

MALE SPEAKER: I'd be fine with it as long as, you know, we're ensuring that, you know, you're kind of focusing on, you know, is there an environmental impact, for instance, right? Like are we doing this in a sustainable manner? Are we kind of engaging the local community as we're doing things like this? Sure, why not?

MG: Michael Wolf is founder and editor in chief of the food tech publication, The Spoon. He has tasted some of these new genetically altered vegetables himself. Michael, good morning.

MICHAEL WOLF: Good morning.

MG: What did you eat?

MICHAEL WOLF: I tried the mustard greens by a company called Pairwise, and they edited the gene to take out the bitterness of the mustard green, which is typically very, very bitter but has a lot of nutritional value to it.

MG: So I like the bitterness of a mustard green, but there are a lot of people who don't. Did you notice a difference? Did it taste less bitter?

MICHAEL WOLF: It definitely tasted less bitter. It tasted pretty good. And unlike you, I don't necessarily like my food very bitter, so I appreciated it.

MG: Aside from the mustard green, what are the other vegetables that people are toying around with here?

MICHAEL WOLF: They’re toying around with lots of different types of produce. Potatoes is one. Simplot, a large potato manufacturer or potato grower for McDonald's, has been working with CRISPR technology to enhance how long the product can stay on the shelves without going brown. I mean, a huge part of food waste is that oftentimes, vegetables or plants or whatever just go bad before they actually reach us. But if it can last a lot longer on the shelf, for a company like McDonald's, that's a huge value.

MG: And so as you understand it, how does this gene editing food work? What's being done here to the food?

MICHAEL WOLF: Well, it's kind of a complex process in that CRISPR is essentially acting like a form of genetic scissors where it goes into the genome and essentially clips out a part of the gene that may have or contributed undesirable trait. That may be the bitterness of a mustard green or the browning of a potato or something that helps make the pit in the cherry. If we wanted to create something like a pitless cherry, we could go in there and work on using CRISPR. And then in a couple of years, you would have a cherry that would have no pit.

MG: And so people have been toying with food for a long time, whether it's through breeding, whether it's through genetic modification. How is this different, do you think?

MICHAEL WOLF: Well, traditional breeding oftentimes takes decades. As you know, the life cycle of a plant or a tree could be, you know, a decade or more. Genetic modification is something we often refer to as GMO. That's different than gene editing and CRISPRing that you're maybe inserting a foreign DNA into a molecule. But with CRISPR, what it's essentially doing is just cutting out undesirable traits. So you're not really inserting something that might be foreign to the organism. So it's something that is a little bit, I guess, less concerning for a lot of people who are worried about GMO because that takes away that concern.

MG: You heard the person on the street say that they're worried that maybe this isn't food anymore. And people will say, well, it's Franken food. I'm not going to eat that franken. [both laughing] You laugh, but I mean, is that a real concern that people might have that idea when you talk about editing the genes of the greens that were eating?

MICHAEL WOLF: I think you should respect people's opinions and I think that there should be a lot of transparency about this, what's happening with this type of technology. But a lot of folks when they go to a restaurant are probably eating food that may be genetically modified, certainly have been changed due to plant breeding over, you know, decades. And they may have already had gene edited food. But I do think, you know, for whatever specific reason, we should have a lot of transparency so people know what's happening. But part of the problem is this is just a very complex technology, so it's really hard to explain to the layman. But I would never laugh at a consumer, but I wouldn't certainly call it Frankenfood because it's something that most researchers, including like the USDA and the Canadian kind of overseers of food, they have determined that CRISPR is safe for food.

MG: In the piece that you wrote, you spoke with some of the companies that are leading this charge to try to figure out how to alter the food to make it perhaps more appealing to people who turn their nose up at it or are not particularly interested in those sorts of fruits or vegetables. What does the company, Pairwise is one of those companies, what does it see as the market for something like kale that tastes different or a cherry that doesn't have a pit in it?

MICHAEL WOLF: Well, you know, we want to find ways to enhance nutrition or the taste of food. And oftentimes, we also want to contribute to crop diversity. You know, a lot of what we eat is just from what we call mono crops, just highly produced crops that, you know, maybe something like the head of lettuce. What you do by introducing new forms of vegetables into our diet, I think that's just generally good for all of us and just good for kind of the farming ecosystem. So I think they see an opportunity to do that, but also just produce an entirely new product. I mean, it's an interesting concept. A mustard green that tastes good and not bitter has more nutrition than your typical leafy green, and that sounds like a winner.

MG: The tomato is the Holy Grail. Is that right?

MICHAEL WOLF: Tomato, yeah, that's a difficult one. I think people are definitely researching that as well. Just like we said, the same company, Pairwise, is actually looking at doing cherries without the pit. Imagine biting into a cherry no pit being there.

MG: How long until I can do that? When is this thing going to be available on my shelf? And to that person's point, will I pay less because it weighs less?

MICHAEL WOLF: I think you’ll probably pay more at the beginning. But over time, the idea is to pay something equal to what you get from an existing cherry. I think it may be a few years because you have to have to actually do the genetic editing and then you have to grow a few trees over time and then see what the product looks like. So I can imagine within 10 years, but I don't want to speak for the company.

MG: Michael, this is really interesting. Thank you.

MICHAEL WOLF: And thank you.

MG: Michael Wolff, founder and editor in chief of the food tech publication, The Spoon. Antony John is an organic farmer, co-owner of the Farm Soiled Reputation. He is in Sebringville, Ontario. Antony, good morning to you.

ANTONY JOHN: Good morning, Matt.

MG: You spend your days with your hands in the dirt growing delicious vegetables. What do you make of the idea that scientists through gene editing technology could make better tasting greens for us all?

ANTONY JOHN: Well, as an organic farmer, you know, I have sort of fundamental issues with the whole idea of genetic modification. You're bypassing evolutionary pathways that while they may be deemed safe now, you don't really know what's going to jump out of the box later on. The USDA has labelled glyphosate and neonicotinoids as safe, but later research has found that maybe they're not so safe.

MG: Do we need, do you think, better tasting vegetables? Do we need to try to figure out ways to take the bitterness out of something like a mustard green?

ANTONY JOHN: I don't think that's a problem with a bad tasting vegetable. I think there are only bad recipes. You know, vegetables have an inherent quality and inherent flavour, and it's like trying to make wine taste like beer. You should stick with I think the vegetable’s profile first of all, and then find a recipe that works for that.

MG: I'll get to the cooking part in a moment. But again, as a farmer, are there things that you do to try to create a better tasting vegetable without getting into the genetic modification?

ANTONY JOHN: Absolutely. There are cultural methods that we can use. For example, carrots benefit from having a frost on them. The cold temperatures causes the carrots to provide an antifreeze, and that antifreeze is sugar. So they convert the starch in their roots into sugars. So letting your carrots grow when it's cold and when there's subzero temperatures will enhance the sugar in it. Also, calcium in the soil is a primary molecule in sugar formation for vegetables. So the higher levels of calcium you have in your soil, the sweeter the vegetables taste.

MG: Is it true that when you're growing tomatoes, before you harvest them, that you should kind of let them starve for a little bit just to kind of enhance the flavours? I mean, that's something that we talk about as amateur gardeners. But is that a way to do this as well?

ANTONY JOHN: Well, you know, tomatoes have about a flavour profile of 300 flavonoids, I think. So It's very hard to genetically select for any one of those flavour compounds. Personally, I would celebrate the variety in tomatoes and try and sample as many different kinds as you can because each of them have been bred. If they're heirloom tomatoes, they've been bred with. Flavours of first and foremost breeding selection trait. So there will be different flavours and different varieties of tomatoes if they're heirloom.

MG: If we get more people to eat vegetables who perhaps don't like the taste of bitter, they think that kale is not particularly interesting, is that not a good thing? Is there not something positive there?

ANTONY JOHN: You know, I think the primary driver should be get people to embrace new recipes. There's such a variety of flavours and vegetables out there right now. And, you know, chefs like Yotam Ottolenghi and locally here, these guys, they know how to get the most out of the characteristics of every vegetable they cook with. And I think it's just perhaps we need to introduce people to new cooking methods or new recipes using the vegetables that we have.

MG: And so give me one thing, one thing that somebody could do.

ANTONY JOHN: Romanesco cauliflower. I think it's the progenitor of what we see as the normal stalk white cauliflower, except this one is sort of a chartreuse yellow. And it looks like it was designed by a fractal geometry expert. It's got an incredible structure, but if you take it apart and break it into florets and put those florets on a baking sheet under the broiler and almost burn them close to getting them blackened, you caramelize the compounds in the cauliflower and they end up tasting really nutty. And all you need is a little bit of salt and lemon juice. You wouldn't know you're eating a cauliflower.

MG: I'm hungry now. Antony, thank you very much.

ANTONY JOHN: Come on over and I’ll cook for you something.

MG: I would love that. In the meantime, it's great to talk to you. Thank you.

ANTONY JOHN: Thanks, Matt.

MG: Antony John is a farmer and co-owner of the Farm Soiled Reputation. He was in Sebringville, Ontario. What do you think? Would you eat these edited vegetables? Would you miss… I would miss bitter in some things. Bitter is a good taste, but it's not for everybody, obviously. Would you miss anything about this? Let us know if this is the way perhaps to get you or your kids to eat more vegetables. Email us, thecurrent@cbc.ca.

OPERA SINGER

Guest: Bette Cosar

[Song: “The Flying Dutchman” by Wagner/Vancouver opera rendition]

MG: That’s the sound of the Vancouver Opera rehearsing for the recent production of Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. For Bette Cosar, this production would be her last. Bette began her career singing with the Vancouver Opera Chorus in 1973. After a 50-year career on stage, she is stepping away. She's on the line now from her cottage in Lake Country, British Columbia. Bette, good morning.

BETTE COSAR: Good morning.

MG: Congratulations.

BETTE COSAR: Thank you. Thank you.

MG: How does it feel hearing that music, knowing that your time on that stage, and we'll talk about other stages perhaps in the future, but that your time on that stage has come to a close?

BETTE COSAR: Well, yes, Yes, I'm very sentimental about it, but it was time. It was time. So I thought I'd step aside.

MG: When did you develop a love of classical music? Did you grow up in a household where music was being played? Tell me about your introduction to music.

BETTE COSAR: Well, I told a fellow yesterday that I used to sing from… I grew up in Mimiko, by the way. My first seven years were in Mimiko, which is now I think part of Etobicoke.

MG: Just outside of Toronto. Yeah.

BETTE COSAR: Yeah. Yeah. So my mother said I was singing, humming along with tunes from the radio when I was in my high chair. So what she really remembers was Goodnight, Irene. And I'd sing along when I was like two, just sing along to the melodies.

MG: So what was the bridge between Goodnight, Irene and opera?

BETTE COSAR: Somebody asked me why opera? And I said, well, as a classical trainer, it's the end of the line. Where do you go from opera?

MG: Yeah. What was your introduction to classical music? When did you think that that was the style? There's a lot of different styles of music. When did you think that that was the style of music that would be interesting to you?

BETTE COSAR: The first teacher I had was Viennese. Her son worked with my father at the Hydro. And so she was classical. She was from Vienna. She was, I don't know how old, old. I was only eight when I started lessons. So I never learned that musical theatre belting. I never did. Never did that and never did that even as a kid.

MG: But something was in you that led you to think that this could be something for you.

BETTE COSAR: Well, I thought that's what people sing. And, you know, when you're young, the music was melodic. Even the pop music you could sing along to. I remember all the hits as we drove West from Toronto when we were moving to Victoria. They Call the Wind Maria and Que Sera Sera and The One Way Wind, I used to wait for them on the radio and I'd sing along.

MG: When did you know you were good at singing? We all sing along at the back of the car, and sometimes it's not particularly enjoyable for the people who are at the front of the car. When did you know that you had it?

BETTE COSAR: Well, I don't know if one ever knows that, but I was put into the Kiwanis music festivals and I would usually do quite well there. So that's that. You know, I've always had goals. Even as a young student, I've had goals to perform.

MG: And the goal was to do this professionally.

BETTE COSAR: No, you just keep going. You just put one foot in front of the other and things happen and I mean, yeah, that's where you end up.

MG: You've performed in, what, 118 productions, is that right? Do I have the number right?

BETTE COSAR: With Vancouver Opera, yeah.

MG: Yeah. How do you keep your voice? And I say this as somebody who speaks for a living and thinks a lot about the condition of my voice. How did you keep your voice in shape over the course of your career? What are the things that you did?

BETTE COSAR: I look after my body. I eat well and I get lots of rest. I can't get tired. Tired is not in my repertoire at all. And right now, I have a good balance with the opera and the choral music. And it's very easy to sing off the breath and sound young in a choir. And I don't do that, you know. So I try to really support the voice with the breath. I know it sounds like a cliche, but that's what I did. I try to sing well all the time when I'm singing.

MG: Are there things that you do before you go on stage? I mean, rituals, perform, something to get your voice ready for that moment?

BETTE COSAR: Well, the thing about singing in a chorus is that I mean, we sing wonderful music, but we don't have the pressure that the leads, we don't shoulder the weight of the production the way the leads do. So, you know, I'm sure they don't warm up in the car on their way to the Skytrain, which is what I could do. And then I get quiet. I don't inject my, I use the energy on stage, not in the wings.

MG: What did you love about being on stage? When there is an audience there in front of you and they're listening to all of the different and watching all of the different facets of the performance, what did you love about being on stage?

BETTE COSAR: I think stepping out of one’s self. I had initially learned how to be a character and getting over that shyness, that awkwardness that the one half of the personality would feel that you have to get rid of in order to become another character. And that's what I had to learn to do at opera Workshop and being another character. And then I just decided that I looked worse doing a bad job, being awkward and making the audience feel awkward.

MG: And so you had to kind of embrace it and just lean right into it.

BETTE COSAR: That's it.

And be all of it, right?

BETTE COSAR: Let the alter ego do that. Leave the other one behind.

MG: And you still, I mean, you know, at 114 productions, 113 productions, you still have that thrill of being on stage and doing that?

BETTE COSAR: Yeah. Yeah, I do. I do. And like as a chorister, we're given basic blocking by the director, and then we're usually paired with somebody in the, you know, like the pretty shows like Traviata, we're paired with somebody or we're told to go over to this side just for movement on the stage. And then we have to create our own little shiners within that little group and create our own personalities. So that's the exciting thing about the chorus. Watching the chorus, everybody's different. You're looking at individuals. It's not a choir. It's not a uniform sound. And I could always just sing with my own voice, which is not a big voice. It's a high voice, but it's not a big voice, and just become part of the production.

MG: I want to play something for you. Have a listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

TOM WRIGHT: Having somebody with her experience and her work ethic is what impresses me the most because she comes in totally prepared for every show. And I hope that that rubs off on the younger choristers that are just developing into full-time chorus Members of Vancouver Opera. Thank you, Thank you, thank you and enjoy your much deserved retirement.

MG: Bette, that's Tom Wright. He's the general director, as you know, of the Vancouver Opera. What example do you think… As Tom says, he hopes that you will be in some ways a mentor and an inspiration for younger performers. What example do you think your career will give them?

BETTE COSAR: I honestly don't know, but the work ethic, well, that's my peasant. That's my peasant blood, my Ukrainian background. Just hard work, basic hard work. And, you know, when I was younger, the music was learned and memorized by the time we started staging. But that sure didn't happen recently. You know, I needed my cheat sheets. And somehow, you have to get this stuff into your short term memory. You hammer it into the short term memory so you can do other things on stage except think about what do I sing next?

MG: What are you going to miss the most about it?

BETTE COSAR: My colleagues. My colleagues and the vocal balance of singing out, singing freely and singing out and my friends. We have a really great group in Vancouver. We’re really cohesive, really cohesive group, you know, no sharp elbows. It's really been a pleasure. Really great people.

MG: Now, I'd read something you said that life begins at 70. And I'm not asking you how old you are, but it sounds as though when you say something like that, that you're not done. This is not you retiring, putting your feet up and taking it easy. There's more to come for you.

BETTE COSAR: No. And the fact that I don't have a music degree, I started up for workshops when I finished university. So however old you think I am, I'm four years older.

MG: And you will be singing for many years to come, you think?

BETTE COSAR: Well, I'm in another choir. It's the third choir that Diane Loomer started for seniors. For seniors. We've got something like 2000 years of choral experience. So I'm in a choir. It's called Encore, and I love the choral rep. It's very rich, very rich. New things, even new arrangements of Greensleeves are interesting. So that is what I'm doing now. And then I joined a handbell choir. That's total brain fry, total brain fry, the handbells.

MG: You're an inspiration. I love that you're still excited about what you're doing and that there's still new things for you to find and discover and stretch yourself with. Bette, congratulations on a great career and thanks for talking to us.

BETTE COSAR: Thank you. Thank you.

MG: Bette Cosar is retiring after 50 years with the Vancouver Opera. That's The Current for this Thursday. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. This, we're going to leave you with for Bette from a favourite production of hers. This is the Metropolitan Opera's version of The Humming Chorus from Puccini's Madama Butterfly. I’m Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening and we'll see you tomorrow.

[Song: The Humming Chorus from Puccini's Madama Butterfly]

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